Propaganda Due

Propaganda Due (P2) was a Masonic lodge in Italy that was founded in 1945. The lodge was founded in the aftermath of World War II with American encouragement, and it, alongside many other Freemason organizations in Italy, transformed its free-thinking Risorgimento traditions into fervent anti-communism. By the 1960s, the lodge was largely inactive and held few meetings, but the self-professed fascist Licio Gelli established a new lodge in 1966. It became a clandestine, pseudo-Masonic, far-right secret association, and its members included prominent journalists, MPs, industrialists, and military leaders, among them Silvio Berlusconi, the royal pretender Vittorio Emanuele, Prince of Naples, and the heads of Italy's three major intelligence agencies. In 1976, the group's Masonic charter was withdrawn, but it continued to operate both in Italy and overseas. During the 1970s and 1980s, P2 backed neo-fascist terrorist groups during the "Years of Lead", and it was accused of conspiring to hide evidence implicating the fascists in the Bologna massacre of 1980. In 1982, the police discovered the P2's plan to consolidate the media, suppress trade unions, and rewrite the Constitution. That same year, P2 was behind the plundering of the Banco Ambrosiano in Milan and the murders of journalist Mino Pecorelli and banker Roberto Calvi. Its corruption would become more well-known during the Tangentopoli scandals of the 1990s.